[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the delinquent.]

Going to School at Charlestown, Mass.—The Hartford, Conn., Times, tells of a summer school for illiterate prisoners which was started this season by Benjamin F. Bridges, warden of the state prison at Charlestown, Mass. A school has existed in the state prison for many years, but it was Warden Bridges who placed it upon a practical basis, such as has made it a power for good.

In the correspondence school, as in the other, the teachers are all prisoners. As soon as a man is sent to the prison and has become accustomed to his surroundings he is interviewed by one of the teachers to ascertain if he wishes to study and improve his mind while in prison. If he does, he is given an application blank, and he fills out the list of studies he wishes to pursue.

If there is doubt as to his ability to enter some classes he has a private examination by the teacher in elementary subjects. If he shows ability to enter the correspondence school he receives material and lesson blanks, and works out his exercises in his own cell in his spare time, sending his answers to the school office. There his work is carefully inspected, and if it is satisfactory new work is sent to him.

The prisoners entered in this correspondence school never assemble in classes, but all their work is done in their own cells, lights being allowed until nine o’clock for such study. While the prisoner-teachers rarely, if ever, see their pupils after they have joined the correspondence school, the hold the teachers obtain upon the respect and interest of the solitary students is truly wonderful.

A teachers’ association was formed recently in the prison, and these men meet at intervals with the prison chaplain to map out lessons and arrange other details of the work. There is almost no limit to the amount of advanced work that may be undertaken.

As the work of the school in the prison progressed it became evident that it kept the men employed and gave them less opportunity to grow morose and desperate. It was found that they were more contented and cheerful, and with education, in many cases, came a pronounced change in character, a reformation that was not assumed in any way, but a natural result of the change from ignorance to intelligence and a knowledge of their own ability to make a way in the world if given an opportunity. The deportment of the prisoners improved wonderfully and has been first class since the school work was started by General Bridges, many years ago.

This spring General Bridges took steps to establish a day summer school for the illiterate prisoners. There are usually about eight hundred odd prisoners in the institution, and from the entire lot about forty were selected as being thoroughly illiterate and have been placed in this newly started class.

In the forty prisoners in the class are represented no less than twelve different nationalities. A mere glance at the men constituting the class is sufficient to indicate that ignorance has been the cause for most of the class finding themselves in prison.

This class in the prison school were allowed to assemble in one room in the institution, and they had desks like ordinary school children. Now every one of the forty prisoners can read, write and cipher in a very creditable manner. It is a new experience to them to be able to read, and their interest in newspapers and stories from simple books impresses one who sees it for the first time.

Some of the men in this illiterate class could not speak English when they entered it, and now they fairly love the warden for having made it possible for them to communicate with their relatives and former friends, although such communications have all to pass inspection before they leave prison.

The ages of the men in this school class run from twenty to forty-five. Some of them will be eligible for parole in a few years and they are looking forward to the fact that they will be able to write out their own applications for such parole.

Police Condemn Crime Pictures.—In reply to requests sent to police heads by the State Charities Aid and Prison Reform Association of New Jersey for information concerning moving picture shows and their influence on the young, these replies have been received:

“I am heartily in favor of legislation which would prevent the exhibition of pictures showing any action which in real life would be a crime.”—Chief of Police Corbitt of Newark.

“I think they are the cause of 20 per cent. of our crime, especially of petty larceny. These shows cannot locate in our town.”—Nutley.

“In my opinion, moving picture shows are bad for women and children. I know where children steal to get money for shows; also where women neglect their families to go.”—Weehawken.

“Children are inclined to steal in order to go there; also neglect their studies.”—Passaic.

“I had a case drawn to my attention of a five-year-old boy who attended a cheap picture show where there was shown a picture with a hold-up in it. This boy’s mother was ill. The child got an old revolver, walked into his mother’s room and told her to throw up her hands. When he was asked where he had learned that he answered he saw it in the show. I believe if the revolver had been loaded some one would have been killed.”—Hackensack.

Big Brothers in Atlanta and Macon.—Atlanta’s probation system for adults, which embraces drunkards, vagrants, wife beaters, deserters of families and the like, is to be materially enlarged in scope and made more efficient through the development of a volunteer probation force of 100 business and professional men who are willing to give a few hours of their leisure time each week in an effort to save the men and youths who come under the supervision of the probation officer. This volunteer force will work in conjunction with Officer Coogler and the Prison Association of Georgia, which has headquarters at 404 Gould building.

In Macon, Lewis J. Bernhardt, agent of the Georgia prison association, has secured 100 names of Macon people who will aid in the perfection of an organization in that city to cope with conditions in the city and county prisons and convict camps and to aid in securing a better penal system for Georgia.

Radical Experiments in Oregon.—According to the Newark Evening News, Governor West of Oregon has inaugurated an “honor system” with astonishing results. Chains and stripes have been abolished. Convicts are put at work outside the prison walls, without guard on roads, farms and buildings, on their word that they “will not throw the governor down.” They are given a chance to fit themselves for useful callings, are assured of parole, with work at good wages, when they deserve it. There have been but three attempts at escape since the system was inaugurated six months ago. The new system is carefully worked out. The state prison aid society works with the state parole board and governor to find remunerative employment for paroled men. Men that have proven reliable and efficient on prison work are recommended for parole; a job is secured them. If they get a better one they can take it. But they must work! And every man of the fifty paroled in the last three months has made good.

When Governor West inaugurated his guardless, outside policy he sent for a fifteen-year convict. “Put him on the street car, give him car fare; don’t send a guard, and tell him to come to my office,” the governor ’phoned the astonished warden. The man came, and went into executive conference with the governor. The plan was outlined, the honor system worked out, and the man went back to the prison on the next car and spread the news through the 450 men behind the walls. Once the governor sent half a dozen long-term men to town to see the sights for half a day and report back to the warden by sundown. They had a good time and reported back to the minute, sober and contented.

When the convicts were first sent out to work alone on the roads the farmers protested loudly. But the men soon proved that they were human, were living up to their honor pledge and were making better roads for the farmers than the farmers could make for themselves. The farmers of Marion county, where the prison is, are now the heartiest supporters of the new policy.

Is it safe to let convicts out without a guard? From January to July this year, with 150 men working outside, without guard, but three have escaped, and all three were “weak in the head,” and should have been in the asylum. During the same period two years ago, some ten men escaped, though under heavy guard all the time. During the latter part of 1909 an attempt was made to work prisoners outside under heavy guard. In a few months eighteen escaped, and on October 6, 1909, six overpowered their guards, took their guns away from them and fled to the hills. Four were recaptured, wounded. Two were killed. Then the cry went up that prisoners couldn’t be worked outside the penitentiary because it would take more guards than there were prisoners.

Governor West solved this problem by doing away with the guards. All there is to the new prison policy of Governor West’s is this: “Give the men a chance. If they don’t take it you have done your part.” But they do take it.

Convicts May Raise Trees.—It is not illegal for convicts to be employed in reforestation as planned by the conservation commission, according to Attorney General Carmody of New York State, nor is it illegal to sell trees raised by convict labor for the reforestation of private lands.

A Candidate’s Proclamation.—E. C. O’Rear, a gubernatorial candidate in Kentucky, has stated his convictions on prison labor thus:

“If elected Governor I will recommend the submission to the people of an amendment to the constitution allowing convict labor to be used in building and repairing the public highways and for no other purpose, outside the walls. It is best for the prisoners themselves to be so employed and until such an amendment to the constitution can be secured, my contention is that they should be employed, whatever they do, at the same wage that is paid the same character of labor outside the prison walls; and that the profit of their labor be applied by the State to the maintenance of the families of the convicts instead of going to and enriching the contractors.”

Judge O’Rear also agrees with the following plank in the Republican platform:

“We demand the enactment of a law providing for bi-partisan control of penal and charitable institutions, and for the abolition of contract convict labor; and we denounce the board of prison commissioners in hiring out the children under their charge at the reform school for the benefit of whose morals and education that institution was originally established.”

Plans for a New Sing Sing.—That there is no need for the proposed new Harlem prison in Wingdale and that the present Sing Sing prison, New York, should be improved and retained is the opinion of Joseph F. Scott, superintendent of State Prisons. Plans tentatively mapped out will save the State at least $2,000,000. By expending $1,000,000 for improvements in Sing Sing, including the construction of a new cell block to accommodate 1,500 prisoners, and employing convict labor on the proposed improvements. Mr. Scott believes the institution can be used to as good advantage as the proposed new Harlem prison. Sing Sing is more accessible to New York city and at least $40,000 to $50,000 would be saved annually in the cost of the transportation of prisoners and freight, it is said.

“Outside of the cell block at Sing Sing the present prison plant is all right,” Mr. Scott is reported to have said, “and with a new cell block at Sing Sing and the 600 cell-capacity at the Great Meadows prison completed to its contemplated 1,200-cell capacity, the State would have a capacity of 1,200 cells each at Auburn, Dannemora, Great Meadows and Sing Sing, or for 4,800 convicts, and the present prison population is 4,500. So far the State has expended $400,000 at Bear Mountain and Wingdale in the attempt to get a new prison, and to complete the Wingdale project would cost $3,000,000 more.

“There are many features about the Wingdale site which make it too costly and unsuitable for a prison. Transportation of convicts and supplies would cost $50,000 a year more than at Sing Sing, and it would cost $250,000 more than anticipated for a water supply and sewerage and grading. A portion of the Wingdale site is swampy, also.”

New York Lockups.—There are now in the state of New York, according to the Commission on Prisons of New York, about 500 police stations and town and village lockups. During the past two years practically every one of them has been visited by an inspector from this department. The commission has been endeavoring to remedy some of the recognized evils quite prevalent in their management, and to insist upon more adequate provision for housing police prisoners and for more sanitary conditions in these local jails.

It has been insisting that there should be a more complete segregation of women from men than that now provided in some cases. Another evil which has received attention and criticism has been the common practice of commingling police prisoners with tramps or lodgers and the failure to segregate boys and adults.

Prisoners held in these lockups have been arrested simply on suspicion and have not had any hearing, and are entitled to decent and humane treatment. With many of them are common drunks, others are of a more reputable class and should not be locked up in crowded unsanitary quarters with tramps and hoboes of the worst kind. The commission has been insisting that these evils be minimized, and that if localities desire to have a lodging place for tramps it should be entirely separate from the quarters where prisoners are confined who are charged with offenses but who will be later allowed opportunity for defense before a court.

Through the persistent efforts of the commission great improvements have been made in these respects in very many of the towns, villages and smaller cities of the state, and the commission believes in its duty to prosecute this work still further until the evils heretofore arising from the improper housing and unwise coming of these various classes of people shall be eliminated.

Detroit Aids Dependent Families of Prisoners.—In the Review for March, 1911, we described the financial success of the Detroit House of Correction. From the annual report of the board of poor commissioners of Detroit we learn that between July 1, 1910, and June 30, 1911, 88 families, comprising 360 dependent persons, were supported by the wages that the husband and father earned while confined in the house of correction. The sum expended for the dependent families was $3,355.

There have been many families who would have gone in absolute want rather than appeal to the city for aid, but under this ordinance they were given the right to requisition a portion of the wages which the head of the household was earning while imprisoned, and they have not felt that they were receiving gifts of charity. Tables prepared with the report show that of the 88 families assisted from the house of correction fund, 39 were Americans, 19 Polish, 10 Austrians, 10 Canadians, and five Germans, while English, Irish, Scotch, Russians and Negroes had but one family each. Seventy-nine of the offenders were sentenced from the police court and nine from the recorder’s court on charges ranging from bigamy and forgery to failure to send children to school.

The report also embodies the suggestion that some system of adequate and permanent relief is needed by means of which provision can be made for widows and their children. Three hundred and forty-five widows with young children, or 24 per cent. of the total number of cases, aided by the poor commissioners, were assisted during the year. Commenting upon this fact, the report says:

“When we think that the average income of these families is not more than $4 or $5 a week, it is impossible to believe that these children are properly fed, housed and clothed. Can we wonder that so many of the children in these families go astray and find their way into the juvenile court detention homes and reformatories?”

Reporting to the American prison association at Omaha, William H. Venn, parole officer for Michigan, outlined the compensation plan operated in the Detroit House of Correction, which he said had met with general commendation.

“On July 6, 1911, the Detroit House of Correction passed its fiftieth milestone. During the last thirty-two years over $1,000,000 in profits have been turned over to the city of Detroit, the families of prisoners, and to the prisoners themselves. Since 1880 the city of Detroit has annually received sums ranging from $9,016.83 to $52,711.64. The original expenditure by the city of $189,841.36 has been turned back into the treasury of the municipality, the institution has paid its own way, and in the fifty years has shown a fine balance of $1,254,178.15. In addition to this showing, since July, 1901, the prisoners have been receiving financial benefits ranging from $5,958.14 to $9,670.38 annually.

“In addition to amounts paid to prisoners, some of which is sent by the men to their families, provision is made for the families of those who are imprisoned on the charge of abandonment. This is accomplished under a statute which provides that $1.50 per week for the wife and an additional 50 cents for each child under fifteen years of age be paid them out of the funds of the institution.”

By oversight there was omitted from the article in the September REVIEW, by Mr. Whitin on Prison Labor Legislation in 1911, a footnote stating that the article had been prepared for the Labor Legislation Review, Vol. 1, No. 3.